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This morning I woke up to kisses and love. Not the romantic kind, the feline kind. That big black shadow of a kitten pressing her cheeks forward for an air kiss, like she was checking my pulse with affection. Whiskey and I were up late last night playing pounce and half-watching Saturday Night Live, which for her mostly meant attacking invisible objects and for me meant laughing at jokes I’ll only half remember. So the morning turned into a slow one. Resting and healing felt like the right assignment. I was supposed to hook up with a friend, but I...

Today didn’t officially begin until noon, which in kitten time is basically dusk. Whiskey and I were up late the night before, running through her greatest hits: pounce, peekaboo, and the Olympic-level event known as catch me if you can. We play a little rough, I’ll admit. I wiggle my hand, poke her belly, and suddenly there are four tiny limbs flailing in every direction like a malfunctioning windmill. Equal parts ridiculous and adorable. The kind of chaos that earns a late wake-up call. Eventually, the day called me to order, because it was the closing reception at the Whittier...

Today felt like one of those days where the universe dumps a whole bingo card of errands on the kitchen table and says, “Good luck.” It was a busy one for mom. Whiskey had a vet appointment. The cleaning lady was scheduled. I had a doctor’s appointment. Mom also wanted to get her hair done, though that plan eventually got sacrificed to the gods of time and exhaustion. The day began, as many do now, with a kitten tongue in my ear and a furry body bouncing around the bed like a caffeinated pinball. I eventually caught Whiskey, gently but...

This morning began as a full-on kitty ambush. Whiskey launched herself into attack mode like a tiny furry chainsaw, biting, clawing, gnawing, and turning my forearms into something resembling minced meat. There was no snooze button negotiation. Some days you simply cannot oversleep with a kitten, no matter how convincing your pillow tries to be. Eventually, through scratches and surrender, I got her fed, which is really what all of this was about anyway. Kitty law is simple: feed first, apologize later. After the dust settled and my arms stopped stinging, my brother Mike came by to visit Mom. Mike...

Whiskey woke me up again this morning bouncing and playing all over the bed like gravity was optional and the mattress was a trampoline. At one point, she nearly crawled into the toilet in the bathroom. That was a heart-stopper. One distracted second and she could have drowned. Luckily, curiosity blinked first and she backed away, offended by plumbing. She didn’t want to go downstairs to play. Instead, she declared the upstairs her personal racetrack and turned the morning into a full game of catch me if you can. I chased, she zigzagged, and eventually we called a truce. I...